


Sanctuary

by athena_crikey



Category: Gintama
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-02
Updated: 2011-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-15 08:57:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/159190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the Jyoui effort falling apart around them, Gintoki tries to prolongue the inevitable end. (Precedes The Early Days of Spring).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sanctuary

They won’t last much longer.

It’s been months since they controlled enough of the city to pitch an entire camp, weeks since they had even one qualified doctor tending to their wounded, days since they slept. Gintoki thinks that at this rate Zura will be dead before the month is out, and doesn’t know how to stop that. Doesn’t know how to save him, without sacrificing his comrades on the battlefield. Either way, he will end up tearing himself apart.

It’s just luck, really, that has put him in the position of deciding rather than Zura. A chance cut by a poisoned sword, a wound they don’t have the means to treat with any remedy other than rest. Zura, like himself, will never rest while battles are being fought and Gintoki can’t spare himself from combat to sit on the injured man. Either the battles will end or Zura will die, and since there is no end to the battles it will be the latter. It’s simple arithmetic, the kind that shreds hearts.

Still, Gintoki’s never been one to accept a future which hasn’t already happened. With the city already practically fallen to the Amanto, camp sites for the rebel forces are few and far between. Amanto ships landing in the outskirts of Edo mean that they cannot simply retreat to a pre-decided point without verifying it as safe. So Gintoki has signed the two of them up to run a scouting mission into the forests to the west of Edo, the only escape from the running battle that he knew Zura would accept. It still smells of betrayal, but it’s necessary work, and it means Zura won’t die this week.

At this point in the war, the idea of informed scouting is a joke. Exhausted as they are, they are simply wandering in the low hills, making vague circles on an old map and trying to avoid tripping in the thick underbrush. Spring is slowly coming to Edo, but while the flower buds may be fattening the trees are still bare of leaves, are cold and foreboding against the darkening sky. They walk through the afternoon and into evening, pace slowing as time wears on. The moon rises full and bright behind them, white against the lavender sky.

Gintoki leads, less because he has the map then because it’s all Zura can do to follow him, every now and then bumping up against Gintoki’s shoulder in the falling dusk. The pair of them stumble along through the wilderness, ostensibly searching for a clearing large enough to house their comrades, really just escaping the fighting without surrendering.

Gintoki is just considering stopping for the night when they break through a ring of trees and come out in a small mossy clearing. The reason for the clearing, he sees as he stops and feels Zura run up clumsily against his back, is the large pool of steaming water. The smell of sulphur in the air tells him what the steam already had, that they’ve come across a natural hotspring.

“Oi, Zura, look.”

“Not Zura, Katsura,” mutters Zura into his shoulder before straightening nevertheless to look. And then, “Ah, a hotspring.” He says it as if he doesn’t believe it.

Gintoki doesn’t blame him. Their luck, never good, has been entirely bad for the past several weeks. Probably, he thinks, the water temperature will be boiling.

He walks over to the water’s edge anyway, kneels stiffly to flick his fingers in and out again in a split second. The tips don’t feel burnt, so he cautiously dips them in again more slowly, and finds that the temperature is actually quite reasonable. Mildly cooler than most onsen, it is still hotter than any water they’ve had to bathe in for months.

“It’s fine,” he says, standing again to drop his pack and begin untying his armour to grant access to the muddy, bloody layers of cloth beneath. Even partially clean clothes have become an unaffordable luxury, along with sleeping on a real futon and bathing in hot water and eating regular, proper meals. He no longer has any concept of where the stains on his clothes came from, no longer cares. He strips himself of the soiled cloth in seconds, dragging his pack and sword over to lie within easy reach, and steps hurriedly into the hot water.

The edge of the pool is quite sharp, dropping down to a depth of nearly three feet almost immediately. After that it evens out, rocky bottom hard and smooth under his aching feet. Gintoki walks in until he is shoulder-deep in the steaming water, then turns to see what’s become of his partner.

Zura, he sees, is still on the shore, shedding his clothes in slow, tired movements. Even under his armour his clothes are stained with dark patches, Gintoki is unsurprised to see. As he pulls them off thoughtlessly, Gintoki is reminded with a painful twinge of the boy who used to cry when he spilt even miso soup on his clothes. Zura finally slips off the now-grey underlayer of his gi, revealing the much-bruised and scarred skin beneath and the long ugly cut along his ribs. They have no bandages to spare for wounds unlikely to bleed out.

He pretends to be distracted by the moon while the other man enters the water, pretends he doesn’t hear the thin hiss as Zura submerges the wound. Knows he’s not fooling anyone.

Zura sits down nearly immediately by the edge of the pool, water rising nearly to his collarbones. His hair, still tied in the high tail he sometimes wears when fighting, trails darkly behind the pale column of his neck.

Gintoki, leaving him to his own devices, begins washing himself as best he can with his hands, rubbing away days’ worth of sweat and blood and dirt. Makes a half-assed job of his back, and after consideration leaves his hair all together, put off by the sulphur and the idea of waiting for it to dry out in the cool air. Above them the full moon shines down, casting a rippling reflection on the surface of the water.

Finished and growing drowsy, Gintoki half-walks, half-swims back to the shore to sit near Zura and rub at his feet, tired and aching from constant standing and walking. Zura, he sees, is leaning back with his head resting against the side of the pool, eyes closed and dark hair puddled on the green moss. Own eyes sharp from years of living in death’s shadow, Gintoki can see the man’s pulse fluttering in his throat, the movement of his chest just above where it vanishes beneath the murky water. He closes his eyes against a surge of desperate possessiveness: _I don’t want to lose this._

“Oi, Zura,” he says instead, voice catching only slightly. “You shouldn’t sleep in the hotspring.”

“Not sleeping; Katsura,” mumbles Zura, without opening his eyes or otherwise moving. Gintoki sighs, and shifts over to sit beside him, nudges him in the side.

“You should get cleaned up,” he says, appealing to Zura’s fastidiousness. And then, to his unpredictable primness, “Or would you rather I did it for you?”

Zura opens his eyes, nothing more than a sliver of silver in the moonlight. For a moment Gintoki can’t read his expression; then he tilts his head and the reflection is lost and he sees only a shadow of fondness lingering in the wake of some stronger emotion. “Aa,” he assents simply, and closes his eyes again.

Gintoki feels as though their roles have been momentarily traded, as though the one who is supposed to be surprised has done the surprising, but it passes quick as light flickering on the blade of a striking sword.

“Maa, you’ve become such a slacker, Zura.” He leans forward and runs strong hands over taut skin and firm muscle.

“Not Zura. Katsura.”

It shouldn’t be like this, thinks Gintoki as he washes the lingering proofs of battle away as best he can. Two young lovers in a hotspring on a spring evening with a full moon overhead should be wanton and carefree, all stupid tenderness and innocence. Should neck and nuzzle and kiss until the heat gives them headaches, then roll out onto the moss to enjoy the cool night air. Should be rejoicing in the freedom and beauty and remoteness of this sanctuary.

The only thing he can rejoice in is the fact that being here means they’ve increased their life expectancy by another night. Means they don’t have to sleep in a field sown with corpses.

He washes Zura with calloused hands while the other man dozes, and then carries him out to lie on the moss and covers them both with the threadbare sheets that pass for blankets. Pulls him to lie close enough that he can feel Zura’s heart beating in his chest, hear the quiet whisper of his breathing.

Gintoki is completely aware that they can’t last much longer. That to buy them another few days, he has even today sacrificed comrades. That no matter what they do, what he does, he is going to lose the man sleeping in his arms.

He is just as aware that he won’t be able to bear it.

  



End file.
